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Nigeria Flags Off Children Deworming Exercise
The Nigerian government has flagged off a nationwide mass deworming exercise in a bid to deworm 309, 600 children between the age of six to ten, the News Agency of Nigeria reported Friday.
Speaking at the flagging off ceremony in Song, a northern city of Nigeria's eastern Adamawa State, Minister of Women Affairs and Youth Development Hajiya A'isha Isma'il said 400 children in each of the country's 774 local government areas would be dewormed in this exercise.
Isma'il noted that her ministry is mindful of the fact that the available drugs would not be sufficient for all the eligible children across the country, but the exercise would send a positive signal to encourage state governments "to take off from where the ministry stops".
She further expressed concerns over the degree of wom infestation in the country, pointing out that lack of potable water in rural communities and poor environmental sanitation made the situation even worse.
It is reported that young children in Nigeria's rural areas are always liable to be victims of various infectious worms because of poor sanitary surroundings and lack of public health-care services.
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